a literal points of light campaign

July 13th, 2011

Hundreds of years ago, the weak red sun finally flickered out. Every remaining settlement maintains its own little sun-star, which provides daylight to an area a few miles in diameter.

Every year, a ritual must be performed to renew each town’s sun-star. The ritual uses up gold. Adventurers are sent into abandoned, dark, horrifying cities and ancient dungeons, and told, “Return with life-giving gold!”.

If adventurers become rich enough, they can generate a new sun-star and start their own Point of Light settlement.

In such a world, normal plants and animals are at a premium, while metal can be foraged from the dead cities, so metal armor might be cheaper than leather. That makes this cold world the reverse of the Dark Sun setting.

The few orchards would be carefully tended, and no one would waste valuable wood on torches. Perhaps everyone knows a ritual that causes a gold coin to burn like a torch.

In the vast cold darks, the monsters are touched with shadow or aberration. The forests are hostile, and the shadows wait for the sun-stars to die.

Posted in 4e D&D, fluff/inspiration, RPG Hub | 5 Comments »

character sheet on a business card

July 12th, 2011

One of the obstacles to pick-up D&D is that you probably don’t have your character sheet with you. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could fit it in your wallet, along with your Monster Manual?

Business card front

(high-quality printable version)

Business card back

(high-quality printable version)

Character sheet sizes have varied greatly, from the austerity of the one-page Basic character (with lots of whitespace) to the excesses of the four-page 3rd edition sheets. In fourth edition, the character sheet has shrunk from the original front-and-back version to the delightful one-page Essentials sheet, which now has 12 lines for “Powers and Feats”, enough for any character as long as they’re level 1.

Character Sheet on a Business Card: My 2 x 3.5-inch character sheet has pretty much everything the official D&D one has, but it’s dollhouse-sized. In order to use it, you might have to write in a fine, spidery script, and possibly change your character name from “Robert the Warhorn, Eater of Worlds” to “Bob W. Eater”, but that’s a small price to pay for the ability to accidentally hand your 12th-level warlock to visiting businessmen.

Skills and Attributes: I laid out the business card so that you write your skill bonuses in the margins. Also, you’ll underline your trained skills, which saves a couple dozen checkboxes.

Powers and Feats: You don’t have room to write your powers, but that’s not really unusual for a 4e character sheet. You should be using power cards: they also fit in your wallet. Also notice that this character sheet has room for 15 feats – three more than the Essentials sheet!

Notes and Character Portrait: It’s not a character sheet if there’s nowhere to draw a portrait. In the combined Notes/Portrait section, you won’t have much room for both, but the player who is doodling elaborate blood spatters on her orc barbarian is not the party note-taker anyway.

The business card format: The nice thing about business cards is that they’re super cheap. You can print up, like, 500 business cards for like $10!

Posted in 4e D&D, advice/tools, game design, RPG Hub | 13 Comments »

1863 precursor to the Red Box

July 8th, 2011


The roof, of dark red tiles, was disfigured by many large, leprous-looking, yellow patches, while in some places the decayed rafters had given way…

The apartments on the ground floor contained nothing but a few bundles of straw, a heap of corn-cobs, and some antiquated gardening implements.

Captain Fracasse, an episodic 1863 adventure novel, has given me more inspiration for D&D adventures than any book since African Civilizations. And it started on page 1, with a description of a ruined chateau.

I’m reminded of the sample dungeon in my 1983 Red Box DM’s book, which had comparable readaloud text:

As you approach, you see that the walls are jagged and full of small holes, and a few large stone blocks have tumbled to the earth, lying around the ruins. A gateway in the center of the front wall stands empty, and the massive outer doors now lay rotting nearby…

The room is 30’x30′, with doorways in the north and east walls; the doors are missing. The room is filled with boxes and crates of many shapes and sizes, and looks like a storage area.

Furthermore, I’m certain that the “leprous-looking yellow patches” in Captain Fracasse are patches of Yellow Mold, which also featured in the Red Box dungeon.

My guess is that Fracasse‘s bundle of straw hides a valuable bracelet, and the corncobs mark the lair of some monster (perhaps a cabal of hideous pig-men?) The gardening implements are just gardening implements.

That’s page 1 out of the way! Later on in the book, there will be fencing, fighting, giants*, true love… you name it. I’ll post more later.

*In Captain Fracasse, unlike in The Princess Bride, the giants are just guys on stilts.

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here’s a solo monster that doesn’t get repetitive

July 6th, 2011

I ran a solo monster that one of my players described as “maybe too gross”, which means, success! I thought I’d share it in case you want to disturb your players.

I’m not providing specific attack and damage numbers, since I just ran it using Monster Manual 3 on a business card. I made it a 14th-level solo, but it should work at any level.

Description: The creature was found in the throne room of a once-magnificent ghoul-infested palace. It’s a large, twisted collection of bodies, body parts, and palace treasure, all in roughly human form: each of its arms is a whole person, bending at the waist like an elbow and using arms like fingers; its stomach is a barrel of brandy; and its head looks at first to be tiny, but it’s just a regular-sized human head on the top of a huge, bulky body. Instead of a jawbone, it has a hand, the fingers of which each end with a tooth.

The monster’s left shoulder is a golden chest with a key in the lock, and the animate corpse who forms its left arm is attached to the lid of the box. The creature has been impaled through-and-through with a golden harpoon, which doesn’t seem to have slowed it down.

Note: This is a lot of information to give the players. I shared out the details, like the cask and the harpoon, over several rounds.

Actions: This was a solo monster, so I had it roll 2 initiatives.

On the first initiative, the monster made a pretty normal attack: a level-appropriate slam that targeted 1 or 2 adjacent creatures.

On the second initiative, it would do something unique and creepy every round. This was the round that really bothered the players.

Round 1: The dangling body of a harlequin, missing its head, raises a flute to a different head, and plays a tune. This is a will attack that causes the target to make a basic attack on an ally. (In my game, this attack critted, so I ruled that it became a Dominate (save ends) rather than a single basic attack.)
Round 2: A beautiful courtesan lodged in the creature’s back takes out a bottle of perfume and sprays it (blast 3, fortitude attack). Anyone hit must kiss the courtesan as a minor action (possibly spending a move action to approach) or take 15 damage at end of their next turn.
Round 3: A protruding chainmail hand dislodges the golden harpoon and throws it. It’s a +3 spear.
Round 4: the jaw-hand comes out of the mouth (extending unnaturally far, giving this attack reach) and makes a non-damaging Grab attack. If the target is grabbed, they are pulled adjacent to the monster, next to its mouth.
Round 5: If a target is still Grabbed from round 4, the mouth bites them, doing massive damage. If not, the monster roars in frustration, coating people in necrotic spittle (blast 5, low necrotic damage).
Round 6: 2 legs hanging from the creature’s torso wrap around an adjacent target (a Grab and damage).
Round 7: A dead, unconscious, or bloodied target (in that order or preference) is grabbed and stuffed into the creature’s body (with appropriate gross sound effects). If the creature is unconscious, it may make escape attempts on its turn.
Round 8 and on: Anyone grabbed on round 6 (alive or dead) is forced to reach out of the creature and make a basic attack.

After around 8, the monster is out of tricks, but battles don’t usually go that long anyway. If they do, things are probably getting boring, so I planned to have the monster start shedding body parts and losing hit points.

Natural 1s: If any PC rolled a natural 1 on a melee attack on the creature, it got an immediate action that let it move its full movement in a straight line, through opponents. Anyone in the way suffered a Fortitude attack or was knocked prone and took a little damage. This let the creature break out of flanks and occasionally threaten ranged opponents.

Bloodied: Like many recent boss monsters, all status effects on the creature ended when it became bloodied.

Countermeasures: The PCs could tinker with the creature in various ways to hurt it.

If a successful Thievery check was made on the golden box in its left shoulder, the lid would come off, along with the attached left arm. After that, the creature would only be able to target one creature, instead of two, with its main attack. (My PCs tried this several times but failed the thievery check.)

If the PCs pulled out the golden harpoon, they got a +3 spear/javelin, and prevented the special attack on round 3.

If the PCs turned the spigot on the barrel in the monster’s stomach, high-quality brandy would run out, filling every square the creature occupied for the rest of the battle. If the PCs decided to light the brandy on fire, it would do damage to any creature in a brandy-soaked square.

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What’s at the center of your game world?

July 4th, 2011
  • Molten core, just like earth.

  • It’s hollow, with a floating sun in the center making a perennial noon, and the concave surface of the hollow earth is populated with exotic tropical creatures (possibly dinosaurs, Barsoomians, or snake-men).

  • The 666 levels of Hell. The surface of the earth is a thin skin, blessed by the gods to keep the infernal legions from boiling out into the universe. That’s why, whenever dwarves dig too deep, they hit a vein of balrogs.

  • An interlocking megadungeon millions of levels deep, each more dangerous than the last. Dungeon level 1 is mostly inhabited by level 1 monsters, dungeon level 2 by level 2 monsters, etc. If each dungeon level is, on average, 20 feet deep, and the radius of the world is 41,000,000 feet, the creature slumbering in the deepest dungeon chamber is level 2 million (or has 2 million hit dice, depending on edition).

  • Nothing – my game world is flat.
  • Molten chocolate core.
  • Other (described in the comments):

    • Posted in fluff/inspiration, RPG Hub | 11 Comments »

    the dungeon where everyone hears everything

    July 1st, 2011

    The Land of the Thomas Covenant books is filled with little magical conveniences. One is a council room with great acoustics, so that everyone can hear everyone else and no one has to shout.

    This would actually be a good gimmick for a dungeon. The party could split up, if they needed to, and the players could still talk to each other around the table. This would remove an annoying restriction that usually plagues groups where some party members are away (or dead).

    For every convenience, there’s a complication. The dungeon would contain a rival adventuring group. They’d be able to hear every word from the PCs’ mouths. Conversely, the PCs would be able to hear every word, grunt, and shout from the rival party.

    The DM would have to prepare a few set-pieces to narrate: the rival party encountering a puzzle, a battle, a crossroads, or just talking trash to the PCs. Some of the rivals’ words would, of course, be calculated to deceive.

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    ancient junk in Gamma World

    June 29th, 2011

    Gamma world has exciting technological treasures (omega tech), but it also has an extensive Ancient Artifacts table that is, well, puzzling. It has a lot of the kind of items that the writers could see from their cubicles: hand lotion, mp3 players, etc. It’s a big percentile table that was included instead of the 4e rules on, say, charging, or recovering from unconsciousness.

    It’s really hard to know what to do with any of this ancient garbage, but nevertheless, during character creation, you spend a lot of time determining exactly which junk you have. I actually chose to forgo a lot of my rolls on the Ancient Artifacts table. Then, during gameplay, we figured out what it could be used for. Ancient artifacts are currency.

    We decided that the Dabblers (tech-loving raccoons) run stores, but they’re based on the barter system. You can get something you want (fuel for your motorcycle, ammunition) if you can get them sufficiently interested in the ancient He-Man lunchbox you dug up. We ran an entire barter-based session around acquiring cordless mice and a piece from a nonfunctional microwave from a dabbler warehouse (called “Beast Buy”: one of the players named it as a joke, and the GM went with it).

    Posted in other systems, RPG Hub | 5 Comments »

    Sweet Character Portraits for My Little Pony RPG

    June 26th, 2011

    The My Little Ponies RPG!

    So it’s been almost 5 years since WotC released the My Little Pony RPG, and I’ve made it all the way to 17th level (my group usually only meets once a month or so).

    I am not much of an artist, so I never bothered making a character portrait for my sweet bronie. Luckily, my friend Anna has stepped up to the plate, making character portraits for not only me but also the other PCs in the game! Check out the portraits in her blog for Rory (me), Scott, and Alison.

    Notice her attention to detail with our cutie marks!

    Posted in other systems, RPG Hub | 8 Comments »

    or they could be robots

    June 24th, 2011

    In Book 1 of the Thomas Covenant series, there’s a unit of 500 elite soldiers who are sworn to immortal service to a kingdom. The soldiers don’t age: they can only die in battle, or if they break their oath.

    Such a unit are just as interesting as their oath of service. They’re totally trustworthy – to follow the letter of the oath.

    If they’re sworn to serve and protect the king of a country, they can’t, of course, assassinate the king – but if the king’s younger brother performs the assassination, they will immediately transfer their loyalty to the murderer. If a userper takes the throne and performs the necessary rituals of kingship, who will they follow?

    If their oath is to the king’s family, not to the Crown, they will keep on fighting after the king is deposed. After all but a handful are slaughtered, a few might decide that they can best serve the rightful king by spiriting him away and going in exile with him.

    Imagine a young woman who doesn’t know her parentage. She’s served by two middle-aged servants who both exhibit motherly concern for her, and who have taught her considerable skill with weapons. At a certain age she’ll start to wonder why her servants have never appeared to age, and why she’s never had to pay them.

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    The Shadowfell: Gloomwrought – Roleplaying with Candles

    June 23rd, 2011

    I ran a session using D&D 4e’s The Shadowfell: Gloomwrought supplement yesterday. It was pretty fun! I introduced the players to the creepy crucified corpse at the intersection of five roads that points in the direction the PCs want to go and to the House of Black Lanterns, an inn for travelers that always seems to appear suddenly out of the mist.

    In addition to the NPCs in the book, I also threw in some of my own inventions for inhabitants of the inn like an old city guard braving the shadowfell to help her granddaughter find her lost husband (who had been taken by banderhobbs) and a down on his luck hill giant who has grown weary of life in the Shadowfell.

    In order to reinforce the mood of the gloomy Shadowfell, I used a single candle as a light source during the game (along with some last shreds of daylight).

    Here are my reactions from using a candle while roleplaying:

    • Everything is gloomy: The relative darkness and flickering candlelight combined to make a pretty somber atmosphere. This was good and bad in that it reinforced the creepiness of the Shadowfell, but it also sucked some of the energy out of the session. I think I might have been able to maintain the energy more if the party was in a haunted or particularly dangerous location where something could attack them at any moment or if they were engaged in a fight with ghosts and horrible undead, but since they were traveling on a road and then later spent the night at an inn it was hard to really maintain a creepy tension so instead everything just seemed a little sadder and more subdued. I suppose I could have tried to hype up what was essentially a non threatening situation and I did a little bit, but ultimately it didn’t feel super appropriate to do so, especially at the inn, which is supposed to be a haven for travelers in the Shadowfell.
    • It is hard to see: Yep. No surprise here. For a game that requires looking at your stats or a die roll every ten seconds, it is definitely a detriment not to be able to see well.
    • I don’t want to hit the candle over: I was a little worried about hitting the candle over during the session and spilling wax on someone’s character sheet or something. I could see this being an even bigger concern during combat, when everyone is moving miniatures around and rolling a lot of dice. I am running a combat next week, so I will let you know how it goes!

    Posted in 4e D&D, RPG Hub | 6 Comments »

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